So, where’s the book?
If you really want to do some reading and have a few brain cells killed off with impossible claims (from both sides)
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123559
There was another long one of WW2 talk I participated in but cant find that one right now (not been on the site for a few years) - 0ne thread was by someone trying to sell a book of his - despite his continual fighting (he claimed it would have been easy to invade Britain and win) he failed to answer valid questions and all his arguments were taken apart - I am really going to have to look at that again - I can get a little passionate or carried away at times about things.
If only I were that keen…
And the requisite alcohol it takes to get through Armchair General threads… :mrgreen:
Agreed, generally speaking. I think Hitler tended to however not let himself be muddled with military details like logistics and all. I do think Hitler believed that if the British were not sensible enough to simply come to terms the invasion could be worked out, initially. But as he came more to obsess with the Soviet Union and ultimately the Jewish “controlled” United States, he thought he would need to secure the resources of the USSR. Hitler had victory disease at this point and had successfully forced his will on his generals hesitant to invade France, and combined with their sensible obstinacy, came up with a (Sickle cut) plan that achieved their victory. I agree he disfavored an invasion of Britain, but I do think he thought it could be done if the necessary resources existed and everything would sort of take care of itself. I think we have to keep in mind also that the Wehrmacht was almost as unprepared for its early victories and there was sort of a “what next?” mentality. They didn’t even have a real war plan versus the French until well after the Polish Invasion started…
From what I have read (and several years of discussions on various sites and books - including one running to over 10k posts over 7 years) - it was a yes if the issues could be solved (when it became clear early on Britain would continue to fight) - he did not appoint the juniors who did the actual grunt work for the planning (or tried to). He appointed the ‘Names’ and basically said - get it done - those ‘names’ appointed the junior staff officers and units that actually did the planning and the development of equipment to be used.
Those in the higher ranks seemed to be under no illusion in their capability to work together (all arms and forces) and actually cross the channel in force with enough strength to defeat the British, never mind the constant resupply afterwards.
Goering seemed to be the only one convinced that it could be done, while he seemed to ignore the state of his own forces - propoganda hype or winning streak blinding him to facts maybe.
It’s hard to know what Goering actually believed since he lied so much, he basically lied about everything including the Luftwaffe’s ability to take on Britain. But he may well have thought it could be done, but only by willful burying his head in the sand as his underlings told him of the gaping challenges facing German air arms in a long war…
The KM were to block the channel with all available mines at one end (including captured and training mines this amounted to just over 6000 sea mines), the other end was to be covered by shore based artillery - this was supposed to prevent the RN from getting into the channel area.
A slight problem though that at the height of the threat the RN already around 80 destroyers/corvettes/sloops in the Channel ports, to which must be added the armed trawlers and other boats of the ‘Lilliput Navy’ - far outnumbering and outclassing the entire KM fleet even with captured vessals included. The RN did not need to get its larger surface fleet into action.
Even reducing the crews of the KM ships to the bare minimum for their tasks so that the rest could be used to crew the captured and requisitioned ships and boats, they would have to call up just about anyone who had crewed a boat including those who were purely pleasure boat owners - to man all the craft they had.
The KM understood this so were less than enthusiastic about planning it (especially after the losses in Norway - including some spectacular losses in destroyers to outnumbered attackers).
Germany did call up all boat skippers, barges and small craft (over a certain tonnage) even from the lakes in Germany and the occupied zones - it reduced their production capacity due to the disruption to the transportation network. Seems odd to slow down war material production for months just to do something for show.
Hitler did not have a concept of how hard a sea crossing and landing on a hostile shore would be - all their experience was with river crossings (which they assumed could be scaled up), where multiple units could cross with full support from their organic artillery or close air support, using existing bridges/fords or their organic engineer capability - none of which would be present when crossing the channel.
I think we should add the institutional weakness that the Wehrmacht had as far as its complete inexperience and even ignorance of amphibious warfare. Both the British and American navies had Marines and a lot of institutional naval experience that was lost in Germany after WWI. Of course, Hitler would be rather flippant about that as well. There actually was a small unit of German naval infantry, they were repulsed with heavy casualties in the opening hours of the Polish Campaign.
I personally think Sealion was nothing but pie-in-the-sky and that both the Heer and Kriegsmarine dragged on plodding as ordered while hoping Hitler would come to his senses and focus on the Soviets - which he did, although that was far from sensible…
Test. Test…